why i didnt enjoy 'the two jakes'

It was good. It just wasn't great.

*WARNING, CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS*

I can't deny that Roman Polanski did an excellent job of directing 'Chinatown' and he is a fantastic director anyway, but if he had have been on 'The Two Jakes' then Nicholson would not have directed it and there lies the disadvantage.

As for Dunaway not being in 'The Two Jakes', she was in voice-over. When Jake was looking through Evelyn Mulwray's files, he comes upon a letter she has wrote to him, and you hear Dunaway's voice over. Obviously, she couldn't have been in 'The Two Jakes' because her character was shot through the head in 'Chinatown'.

A lot of people have said that they didn't think Meg Tilly was convincing as Kitty Berman. I think she performs the role brilliantly. She's elegant, beautiful and somewhat frosty at times, just like her late mother Evelyn. (she is revealed to be Katherine Mulwray at the end) Due to the fact she is trying to keep this fact hidden from Gittes she maintains the cool exterior and when he finds out she tells him she didn't want him to be involved because she knew he wanted to protect her. We only see her show true emotion towards the end, when she's listening to her husband's suicide tape and when she tries to seduce Jake Gittes. You can truly see her mortification when he knocks her back. I think Meg Tilly did a wonderful job of this part.

What you said about the fact 'The Two Jakes' doesn't feature a 30-something Nicholson is simply down to the fact that it was 1990 and he was no longer in his thirties. While it would have been nice (we all know how great he looked, and still does in my opinion), time has passed (it was apparently meant to have been several years in the story, anyway) and Jake is in his fifties.

I happen to think 'The Two Jakes' is slightly better than Chinatown, only because I understood the plot a little better, and because Madeline Stowe was hilarious. I only wish they could have made a third.